This product image provided by Taco Bell Corp., shows Taco Bell's new Johnsonville sausage and egg wrap, one of the items the fast-food chain will be offering on its new breakfast menu which debuts Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012.

America! For the love of God, guns and all that you hold dear, please please please do not eat this food-like item you see before you. Can't you see it's made of chemicals and fat and dead, lost dreams?

Can you not tell at a moment's glance that consumption of this ghastly item will make you fat and sick and walk around all day feeling like you have glue in your blood and thick, gummy cobwebs all over your bones and you can't get them off?

Of course you know. Of course you understand how the malevolent fast food company that invented this slimy disk of horror pretty much openly despises you, does not care one iota for your well being, health, happiness, or imminent brain aneurysm, but only wishes to suck dollars from your very soul. You know if you eat stuff like this you will spend your days bitter, hostile and depressed, but you won't know exactly why.

Nevertheless, I cannot help it. A warning must be sounded. A fist of protest must be raised. For lo the headline did scream, "Taco Bell jumps into breakfast market," and then up popped the frightful photo you see before you, this hideous slab of yellow and brown depravity looking very much like a barnacle scraped off the bottom of a truck, to which anyone with a functioning anima will naturally recoil in abject and understandable dread.

"What the hell is that thing?" said the photo editor for this very site, when I asked him to ready the photo for inclusion in this column. "Exactly," I replied, as we both wondered who would willingly put such a hellish Monsanto byproduct into his or her body, who would really think it a wise or even momentarily tasty option, and also what wretched, lost Taco Bell food engineer invented such a thing and how he manages to face his wife and children at night.

Perhaps you are saying at this point, "Oh my God, Mark, chill out, of course I wouldn't eat such garbage. What am I, in the Midwest? What am I, a millennial teen with a spasming colon and zero understanding of what actually constitutes food? What am I, completely ignorant of such matters?

"Really, who in their right mind doesn't know by now that there is not a single thing Taco Bell (or any other Yum! Brands offshoot -- Pizza Hut, KFC) creates that is the slightest bit positive or uplifting to humanity? Is it really necessary to wail and stomp and point out the obvious?"

Perhaps you are also saying, "Who really cares? Why get all perturbed and excitable about what other people eat? Is it not the height of arrogance and condescension to suggest you know better? Could your columnal time not be better spent going after, say, Apple, or Obama, or maybe a thoughtful screed about the SOPA blackout and the future of Net protocols in mainstream economic bifurcations affecting needful stimuli of egalitarian legalities?" To which I reply, "Wait, what? Do I have to?"

Yes, I know you already know. Of course if you are reading this column you are already a member of the choir, you look at Taco Bell's greasy wheel of hate and part of you gags while another says "OMG what the hell is that orange stuff? Is that supposed to be cheese? Why am I thinking 'rotting snail'"?

Perhaps you have a point. Perhaps I should refer you to this fantastic piece of hate mail last I received last week in response to my happy lambasting of Paula Deen, the kind of semi-coherent ALL CAPS hunk of spittle I rarely get anymore, thanks to the disastrous advent of anonymous commenting.

Would you like to read it? Alas, I'm afraid it is of a tone and language that cannot be reprinted here. Which is why God invented Facebook notes. Here's the link. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Rather not? I understand. Here's the gist: Who cares what other people eat? Who cares if people are dumb enough to put poison in their bodies? Let them be stupid and die! One less idiot to worry about! Who are you to tell anyone what to do? Shut up, liberal elitist jerkface! Ron Paul 2012! And so on.

Perhaps Cesar is right. Why should I care what you eat? Why should anyone care what anyone does to anyone else, so long as they're not hurting the planet, scratching my car or raising property taxes? So long as they're not promoting dietary ignorance, ruining the health care system and wondering why depression and cancer, obesity and malevolence rule the land? Oh wait.

To be honest, I do not know why I care so much. Perhaps it's because I adore you and I think you're all that, and I want to invite you to investigate all these delightful cultural atrocities right along with me. Perhaps a faint hope exists that the message will somehow traverse the food/ignorance barrier and affect those who need to hear it most.

Does it matter? I haven't been inside a Taco Bell in more than 20 years. Do you know what sort of miracles happen when you dial yourself, your heart, your taste buds away from the poisons of the popular culture? What happens when you clear your system of such ticks and leeches and rabid malevolence? Miracles, I tell you. Unimaginable joys. Energy transforms. Air feels better. Things taste better. Wine. Sex. Organic food. The world. Your lover. Trust me.

Ah, but one more truth abounds. The ironic flipside. It is this: The most inspired and ecstatic beings I know are the ones who can find bliss in just about anything -- the simplest taste, touch, moment, no matter what it contains. Orgasm. Sunlight. Yoga. A grass-fed steak. The perfect Manhattan. Skin on skin. Taco Bell? Why the hell not? In the grand scheme, what's a noxious chemical or ten? Sure it's of very low vibration. Yes, it hates you and everything you stand for. Sure it tastes like rubber bands and squirrel guts and salt. So what? It's just a thing.

So we laugh. Maybe we can eat Taco Bell once in awhile. All part of the divine plan, right? Perhaps I am only 97% serious when I say, "Please dear God do not eat this garbage." Perhaps a sly three percent says, "Oh, what the hell." Who cares? What do I know? What do you think? Are you really going to eat that?